Trump praises his "friend" Xi Jinping: "He is a great leader"

BarcelonaDonald Trump and Xi Jinping wanted to show good chemistry before starting their first bilateral meeting of the US president's official trip to Beijing. In statements before starting the closed-door meeting, Trump lavished praise on Xi. "I tell everyone, he is a great leader," he said. He added: "It is an honor to be here with you, it is an honor to be your friend." Trump admitted that on some occasions "there have been difficulties," but celebrated that they have been able to solve them. "We have a fantastic relationship, we have understood each other, when there have been difficulties we have resolved them. I call you and you call me —he affirmed—. People don't know it, whenever we have had a problem we have resolved it very quickly.

The President of the United States predicted that the two countries will have "a fantastic future together," while his Chinese counterpart reminded him that "the common interests of China and the US outweigh their differences." Xi emphasized that the two countries "must be partners and not rivals." However, he also warned him about one of the major sensitive issues, Taiwan, and cautioned him that "mismanaging" this issue could lead Beijing and Washington to "clash and even conflict." Xi defended that "Taiwanese independence" and peace in the Taiwan Strait "are incompatible," and stressed that stability in this area is "the main common denominator" between China and the US.

Furthermore, the Chinese president referred to the tariff war initiated by Trump: "There are no winners in a trade war." The two countries are now in a truce, agreed last October after the tariff escalation reached rates of 145%.

The bilateral meeting lasted more than two hours, double what was planned, and had an expanded format, meaning that members of the delegations from both countries participated. Among Donald Trump's companions are Secretary of State Marco Rubio and several businessmen, including Elon Musk and the top executives of companies such as Apple, Tim Cook, and Nvidia, Jensen Huang, in addition to representatives from Boeing, BlackRock, Visa, Mastercard, Meta, and Goldman Sachs.

Xi and Trump continued the meeting with a visit to the Temple of Heaven, one of the most emblematic places in the Chinese capital. This is the second official trip of the North American president to the Asian giant, although it is the first of Trump's second term. He visited the Chinese capital in 2017, during his first term. Now Trump finds himself with a more competitive and assertive China that rivals the United States and Xi, a more unstable Trump who has shaken the world order.